


Big Hero 7

by Onehelluvapilot



Series: Tadashi Hamada [1]
Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: "Im gonna make a happy au where no one dies" (makes it sad), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Amputee Tadashi Hamada, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Burned Tadashi Hamada, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Prosthesis, Robotics, Tadashi Hamada Lives, Tadashi feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 15:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13079709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onehelluvapilot/pseuds/Onehelluvapilot
Summary: Almost canon, except Tadashi survived the fire. Takes place after the events of BH6, as the older Hamada brother reaches out to a friend while struggling to deal with the consequences of surviving.





	Big Hero 7

**Author's Note:**

> My robotics team watched this movie at a team bonding event, and (as well as wanting to build Baymax) we now all have a serious case of the feels. Fanfiction is my way of dealing with it. My friends helped me edit it (which is why it says heck instead of actual cussing).

“Tadashi?” Wasabi asked of his sopping wet friend who stood outside his dorm room at three in the morning. It wasn’t unusual for him to be there, even at this time of the night. College students, inventors, and superheroes all tended to keep odd hours, and as all three at once, both of the young men had rather erratic sleep schedules that often enough had them waking up at midnight to get some work done. Tadashi came over often enough to to ask for advice about projects, but he always took the streetcar and brought his stuff with him or had his helmet with him when he rode his scooter. But neither of those would let have him get so wet in the mild San Fransokyo drizzle, and the only thing in his hands was a bandage wrapped around his right palm. He smelled like burn cream. “What the hell happened to you?”

  
“I ran into a burning building,” Tadashi replied, sounding just so tired. He leaned against the doorframe, and Wasabi realized he was wearing a new, slightly muddy prosthetic.

  
“I meant recently,” Wasabi clarified as he ushered his friend inside, thankful he didn’t have a roommate. Most dorms were synonyms for disaster; his was the antonym. Everything had a case and a place and the bed was always made. He pulled out a chair away from his meticulous desk. Even in the middle of a dozen projects and exam week it was hopelessly organized. Tadashi sank gratefully into the chair and began unclipping the robotic lower leg from his stump. He let it fall to the floor when it was done, which bothered Wasabi to no end because it was OUT OF PLACE but he forced himself to let it lie. “What happened to your hand, and did you walk here in the middle of the night, and why? Couldn’t you have taken your scooter?”

  
“I burned it, yeah because I needed to get out of the house, and the streetcars don’t run at this hour, and no because Hiro took it apart for parts,” he answered all the questions. Wasabi was pretty sure Tadashi had never done that before, and he was wondering a little why he was doing so now, but he wasn’t about to protest information from his usually reticent friend. When it came to projects the young man could rant for hours, but ask him about himself and you would feel like a parent trying to pry two words out of a teenager. Maybe he should ask his mom for advice.

  
“How’d you burn your hand?” He asked first. “Soldering iron?”

  
“Cookie sheet. Trying to help Aunt Cass out in the cafe and ending up just making more trouble for everyone.”

  
“...you okay man?” Tadashi was acting very unTadashi.

  
“No,” he choked out, choking up. He was shaking, and it was hard to tell whether it was from shivering or crying or both. “I’m cold, I'm tired, and my leg is killing me.” That was definitely a little aborted sob at the end there.

  
“I can fix the first thing,” Wasabi instantly offered. He grabbed a folded sweatshirt out of its drawer and handed it to his friend. Tadashi didn’t ask for him to look away as he started pulling off his own sweatshirt, but it felt invasive to stare. He didn’t know where else in the room to look though, and his friend’s scars had a tendency to draw the eye towards them. The slight ripple of his skin over his right cheek only got worse as it spread out to his disfigured ear, luckily sparing his eye on the way, and downwards until on his torso the scars mimicked the ferocity of the fire which had caused them. They were still an ugly red, not even faded to pink. Tadashi pulled the extremely large hoodie on quickly, and yanked the hood up to hide his scalp where his hair wouldn’t grow back. He wore his baseball cap almost all the time now. Tadashi wiped his eyes with the long sleeve. “Why did you need to get out of the house?”

  
“I just needed someone to talk to who won't panic at what I say.”

  
“What, you think I'm going to freak out any less than Hiro or Aunt Cass would?” Wasabi asked incredulously. “Have you met me? Cool composure is not exactly my middle name.”

  
“I know, I mean, like, I don't want them to worry about me more than they already do, and I know that isn't possible with you.”

  
“Yeah,” he agreed. That was true, for better or worse. “Go ahead then, I guess. Tell me what's wrong.”

  
“It's not one big thing really, just a bunch of tiny things, and honestly I feel stupid about complaining about it because I know how lucky I am to be alive, but-” he paused, clenched his jaw, put a hand over his mouth, continued. “Baymax just keeps turning himself on despite how I've told him and, failing that, programmed him to understand that he can't fix me. And people treat me differently too. I wish Cass would do that thing that she did to Hiro and I after we got arrested, not that I enjoy getting pulled along by the ear, but I wish she could get past the “are you okay?” part to the “what the hell were you thinking?” Which is honestly closer to what I deserve. Hiro acts like he has to protect me now, instead out the other way around. Honey treats me like she’s terrified of hurting me, despite how I’m pretty sure she’s never hurt anyone in her entire life. Fred and Gogo are the only ones who haven’t changed at all, which is almost as bad. Gogo keeps telling me to “woman up”, not really getting that most of my failures are because I can’t, not because I’m not trying. It pisses me off, you know, because what right does she have to tell me to get back on my feet if she doesn’t know how hard it is to balance with just one? If she hasn’t experienced what I’m going through? I thought she of all people would understand that. And with Fred, I know fire is kind of his only weapon but…” he trailed off. “You don’t know how glad I am that you at least know how to both acknowledge the what happened and accommodate it but not pity me.”

  
“Uh, you’re welcome?” Wasabi hazarded a guess as to an acceptable response to what he thought was a compliment. It must’ve been the right one, as Tadashi managed a weak smile. “What else?”

  
“I’ve been thinking about Abigail.”

  
“Abigail? Professor Callahan’s daughter?”

  
“Yeah. I actually knew her briefly before. She was a TA in one of my classes. I remember wanting to ask her out. I have no idea if she would have said yes. I have a really bad feeling that she wouldn't now, and not just because I helped put her father in jail.”

  
“You mean your burns,” Wasabi clarified. “They don't define you.”

  
“I know, I know that,” Tadashi agreed. “It just hurts, you know? Little kids stare at me on the street car. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked if I’m a cyborg, or part robot, or about a million other versions of that question when I’ve been trying out prosthetic prototypes. It was funny and even kinda cool at first, but now I’m just tired of it. It’s getting harder and harder to smile at them, and I’m pretty sure it comes out as a grimace half the time.” He paused again to run a hand over his face. Wasabi wanted to tell him that if he needed to cry that was alright, but he didn’t know how to phrase it.

  
“I think my biggest problem is that I just don’t have a chill mode anymore,” he continued. “Between the fire, and then a month in the hospital with nothing to do except try to get used to not having a right leg anymore, and then getting out and going back to my normal, irrevocably altered life, and then everything going to shit again. I mean, we got chased by a man in a kabuki mask controlling my little brother’s microbots, who we then found out was actually my dead professor, that I risked and almost lost my life to save and who hadn’t needed rescuing at all. And then the worst part was when I was forced to wait out the action and watch as my little brother went into an alternate dimension to rescue the woman I had a crush on years ago and then…. And then it’s just back to the new normal, which I don’t even know what that means anymore. It’s like the roller coaster ride of emotions just wiped out any and all ability for my brain to process things calmly, and now it won’t ever turn itself off.”

  
“That’s one of the downsides of being a genius.”

 

"I'm not the genius in the family."

  
“Yeah, no,” Wasabi cut him off. “You built Baymax, by yourself for the most part. Most of what Hiro has done is just building on the foundations you laid down and the ideas you gave him. Accept that you’re as smart as heck.”

  
“How smart is heck?” Tadashi asked jokingly.

  
“Very,” Wasabi replied somberly. “Smart enough to figure out how to get through this, or live with it, I guess. It’s okay if you need a while, but it seems to me that you’re already doing really well. If you need something to distract you, maybe you should try dating. Not Abigail; I think she has enough to deal with without trying to manage a relationship, given the whole coming back from an alternate dimension and all.” He wasn’t going to say it, but it wouldn’t help either if her boyfriend had tried to save her dad and whose little brother then rescued her and got him arrested, not to mention the inevitable baggage of an amputee burn victim.

  
“I'll have to put ‘physically incapable of long walks on the beach’ on my dating profile,” Tadashi said, but lightheartedly. “Can you imagine what sand would do to this thing?” He gestured down at the prosthetic on the floor.

  
“It seems to have held up pretty well against mud,” he said. His friend’s eyes went wide.

  
“Shit, I’m messing up your entire room aren’t I?” He said. He looked down at the chair like he wanted to stand up but couldn’t.

  
“It’s fine,” Wasabi immediately insisted. He would have to clean everything after he left, but that was alright. “Look, it’s late, and I assume you don’t want to walk all the way back home. Why don’t you spend the night, or what’s left of it anyway, here?” He would have offered him a ride home, but his van was still at the bottom of the bay.

  
“You only have one bed,” Tadashi protested.

  
“And a comfy chair. I was awake anyway. I fell asleep right after getting back from class, at three. I’ve already gotten my eight hours.”

  
“Well, if it isn’t too much trouble,” he relented. “What’s left of my leg is killing me. I haven’t walked this far since before. Thanks Wasabi.”

  
“No problem man,” he replied. “You know we're all here for you.” He said it like a statement, not a question. “You are going to have to put on some dry pants before I let you anywhere near my bed though.” He helped his friend into a massive pair of pajama bottoms, because it was a little hard to put pants on when you couldn’t do it one leg at a time. He looked as small as Hiro in the comically gigantic clothes and large bed (or what passed for one in a dorm).

  
“You sure you're comfortable?” Wasabi asked as he tried to figure out which of his homework would be the quietest. He tended to talk to himself when he was working through problems, and he didn’t want to keep his friend awake.  
“Yeah, I’m good,” he assured him. He knew from previous experiences that this wasn’t Wasabi treating him differently because of the leg; he was just always like this. Accommodating to the point of sometimes making you want to hit him just to get the point across that ‘yes, it's fine, stop asking.”’ “Thanks again.”


End file.
